


Butcher

by elephant_eyelash



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Animal Death, Food, Gen, violence against animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 02:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18512353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elephant_eyelash/pseuds/elephant_eyelash
Summary: Gendry and Arya by the fire, discussing jacket potatoes and thinking murderous things.





	Butcher

Arya thought that the rabbit must have been as hungry as they all were. 

Back in Winterfell she hadn’t thought much about the life that got snatched away and then served to her at table as the butchering was done far away. But now she saw it, felt it, heard it, first with the pigeons in King’s Landing, and - now - with these skinny rabbits. She watched quietly now as it’s legs kicked furiously in the air, eyes shimmering with fear, but always silent, and then, gone. Gendry was good at butchering, strong but delicate and precise with his movements. Hot Pie turned pale, but neither she or Gendry were cruel enough to point out that he always turned his head away so as not to look. 

The first time she had tried to kill a rabbit she had made such a mess of it that Yoren had to seize the creature from her hands and bash it against a tree. A rabbit’s neck was tenser, stronger than a bird’s. Then, she thought, the first time she tore open a rabbit’s stomach open, how it was so much like and not like that stable boy. In her role as butcher she made tears, cuts that meant slime, guts, exposure– not the quick, tidy illicit slide of a blade. 

But they both – that rabbit, all the rabbits she had butchered, and the Stable Boy - had, remarkably, still smelt of shit, still smelt of sweat, animal smells. The rabbit had done her no wrong, however, and besides, she thought, The Stable Boy had not deserved the painless, instant demise that came with wringing; or indeed, the death that came with swords-on-necks-in-old-dusty-sunlit-squares-with-boorish-crowds, when daughters of the condemned could only watch on helplessly, nauseous with stomachs full of pigeon and lemon cake. 

She shuddered at the thought of lemon cakes. Lemons in the North were a true sign of nobility, and at that her mind turned to other once commonplace things – cloves, peppercorns, honey, pig, oh, salt – all the while watching as Gendry tore off skin, gristle, excrement and threw it on the ground. 

She felt dizzy and tried to ignore the cooking smells. She had always enjoyed bothering the cooks at home, asking them how things worked, what was this, what is that, how do you get the fire so big, can I have a cake? Not even one? Gendry did not want to be disturbed either, and neither did Hot Pie, for it took too much energy to talk. She thought of how good the rabbit would taste basted with butter and wine and with those little onions at the side in gravy. She’d get a big chunk of bread afterwards and suck the bones and her mother would tell her to stop but all the boys would laugh. 

She could tell Hot Pie, too, often dreamed similar things. But he would say the thoughts out loud and Gendry would get annoyed and tell him to stop because it would only make them hungrier. 

When time came to divide the meat up Gendry gave her a leg, the saddle, the heart, and the kidneys. 

“What about you?” She asked. She wasn’t sure which parts he had but it didn’t look like much. 

“I’m fine.” 

She frowned. “But you’re bigger than me. You need more.” 

“Exactly, I’m bigger than you. You’re still growing.” 

It tasted just like all the rabbit they’d ever had before (when they’d been lucky enough to get it) and she imagined her mother sat opposite her, frowning at how she used her teeth to tear the stringy meat open and sucked the fat off her fingers afterwards. But it was still never enough, and that realisation, that same grim and perpetual truth that they’d all probably never ever stop being hungry, settled amongst them by the campfire. 

Hot Pie took himself off to make water, and Arya brought her knees to her chest, and she enjoyed briefly the feeling of being so small that it seemed she might disappear. “When I get to Winterfell, I’ll have Gage prepare me a feast. I’ll have beef and bacon pies and roast turnips and potatoes.” She looked up, but Gendry did not seem annoyed at her interjection, or perhaps he was just too tired to tell her to stop. 

Arya rocked gently forward towards the fire. “There’ll be garlic sausage, big wheels of cheese, oatcakes, and berries with cream.” 

Gendry poked listlessly at the fire with his stick. “Alright for some.” 

“Gage will cook for you two as well when you come to visit. He’ll make a giant pie for Hot Pie with cherries and he’ll make you whatever you like, Gendry.” 

“And he’ll make me eat in the kitchen, I s’pose.” Gendry retorted. 

“No.” Arya said, jaw tightening. “You and Hot Pie will both sit at High Table with me, and my brother will toast you both.” 

Arya quietened, sullen with Gendry, with her hunger. She did not understand why he could not see himself there with her, laughing with all the blood and flakes of pastry dripping onto their chins as they tossed bones to Nymeria. They would joke, too, about all the times they had to prepare and swallow acorn paste and bugs and skinny rabbit thick with maggots and fleas as if, no, something that absurd and awful could not have happened to them, surely not them. 

She listened to the fire spit, and thought of Gage and his fire, and then of the fire in her father’s solar, and the warmth beneath her feet as she explored the glass gardens. The plums and apples would be ripening now and the air would be heavy with the smell of them. 

“Sometimes, when we’d let the forge burn down for the night, Tobho would pack a big potato in some clay.” Gendry said, mimicking the size of his potato with his hands and looking at the empty space in between with a strange light in his eyes. “And he’d leave it in the forge overnight and by morning the embers had cooked it through.” He stared at the empty space for a while, and Arya looked, too, rapt, before Gendry drew his hands away, embarrassed. “I mean, it wasn’t fancy but…” He took a shuddering breath. “It was so good.” 

Arya sat silent for a while, because it felt important to let his words settle. Gendry returned his attention to the fire, and she thought how pathetic it must seem to what it was used to, this fire that coughed and sputtered and grew sickly and could never wish to accomplish magical things with metal or with potatoes, even. 

“You can make it for me, when you come to Winterfell.” She said eventually. “It sounds nice.” She caught herself. “Not that I’d put you to work in the kitchens.” 

He laughed a little at that, and she wanted to say, no, you’ll make swords in the forge, swords that can butcher with ruthless efficiency, swords that can gut little Stable Boys and rabbits with equal precision and care. You will, she thought. But before she could say it the fire went out and the scent of rain was in the air. That night all there was left of warmth was the feel of Gendry and Hot Pie beside her, and so she shut her eyes and plotted endless feasts.


End file.
